WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed on Friday the possibility of a new accord limiting nuclear arms that could eventually include China in what would be a major deal between the globe’s top three atomic powers.
Trump, speaking to reporters as he met in the Oval Office with Peter Pellegrini, prime minister of the Slovak Republic, also said he and Putin discussed efforts to persuade North Korea to give up nuclear weapons, the political discord in Venezuela, and Ukraine during a call that stretched over an hour.
The 2011 New START treaty, the only U.S.-Russia arms control pact limiting deployed strategic nuclear weapons, expires in February 2021 but can be extended for five years if both sides agree.
Without the agreement, it could be harder to gauge each other’s intentions, arms control advocates say.
Trump cited the expense of keeping up the U.S. nuclear arsenal as a motivating factor behind wanting to limit how many weapons are deployed.
“We’re talking about a nuclear agreement where we make less and they make less and maybe where we get rid of some of the tremendous firepower that we have right now,” he said.
Trump said China during trade talks had “felt very strongly” about joining the United States and Russia in limiting nuclear weapons.
“So I think we’re going to probably start up something very shortly between Russia and ourselves maybe to start off, and I think China will be added down the road. We’ll be talking about non-proliferation, we’ll be talking about a nuclear deal of some kind, and I think it’ll be a very comprehensive one,” he said.
The New START treaty required the United States and Russia to cut their deployed strategic nuclear warheads to no more than 1,550, the lowest level in decades, and limit delivery systems - land- and submarine-based missiles and nuclear-capable bombers.
It also includes extensive transparency measures requiring each side to allow the other to carry out 10 inspections of strategic nuclear bases each year; give 48 hours notice before new missiles covered by the treaty leave their factories; and provide notifications before ballistic missile launches.
Trump has called the New START treaty concluded by his predecessor, Barack Obama, a “bad deal” and “one-sided.”
The Kremlin said the two sides confirmed they intended to “activate dialogue in various spheres, including strategic security.”
The two men, who last chatted informally at a dinner of world leaders in Buenos Aires on Dec. 1, briefly talked about the report by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller that concluded Trump did not collude with Russia during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Putin seemed amused, said Trump.
“He said something to the effect that it started off as a mountain, and it ended up being a mouse. But he knew that because he knew there was no collusion whatsoever. Pretty much that’s what it was,” he said.
The Kremlin said the call was initiated by Washington. It said the two leaders agreed to maintain contacts on different levels and expressed satisfaction with the “businesslike and constructive nature” of the conversation.
With the United States concerned about a Russian military presence in Venezuela at a time when Washington wants Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to leave power, Trump told Putin “the United States stands with the people of Venezuela” and stressed he wanted to get relief supplies into the country, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.
Putin told Trump that any external interference in Venezuela’s internal business undermines the prospects of a political end to the crisis, the Kremlin said.
The two leaders discussed Ukraine. Trump cancelled a summit meeting with Putin late last year after Russia seized three Ukrainian Navy ships on Nov. 25 and arrested 24 sailors. Putin also told Trump that the new leadership in Ukraine should take steps to solve the Ukrainian crisis, the Kremlin said.
Trump also raised with Putin the issue of getting North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. Trump has met twice with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un but Kim has yet to agree to a disarmament deal.
FILE PHOTO: A combination of file photos showing Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, Russia, January 15, 2016 and U.S. President Donald Trump posing for a photo in New York City, U.S., May 17, 2016. REUTERS/Ivan
Sekretarev/Pool/Lucas Jackson/File Photos
Sanders said Trump mentioned several times “the need and importance of Russia stepping up and continuing to put pressure on North Korea to denuclearize.” The Kremlin said both leaders highlighted the need to pursue denuclearisation of the region.
During an April summit with Kim in Vladivostok, Putin expressed Russian support for a gradual process of trading disarmament for sanctions relief.
Reporting by Steve Holland and David Alexander; Additional reporting by Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow; Editing By Tim Ahmann and James Dalgleish
As lawmakers bickered in Washington, Yemenis were mired in world's worst humanitarian crisis Government soldiers in central Yemeni city of Taiz last October (Reuters/File photo)
Almost two years after a resolution was first introduced, efforts in the United States Congress to end American support for the war in Yemen came to an unsuccessful end this week.
The proposed legislation, which invoked for the first time a 1973 law that gives Congress the power to end US military interventions it did not authorise, was a signature away from becoming legally binding.
Instead, the Senate on Thursday failed to overturn Donald Trump's veto, effectively ending US lawmakers' hard-fought attempt to force the president to end American assistance to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia would end Yemen war without US support, experts say
But as Democrats and Republicans bickered over the conflict and the US's role, the misery did not stop in Yemen.
In fact, the UN says the country now faces the world's worst humanitarian crisis as a result of the war.
Launched by Saudi Arabia and its regional allies in 2015 to push back the Houthi rebels, the ongoing conflict has pushed millions to the brink of famine and caused the spread of disease.
If the war in Yemen continues until 2030, the death toll could rise to about 1.8 million, according to a UN-commissioned study by the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.
Here's a look back at how US lawmakers tried - but failed - to end US logistical support for Saudi-led forces in Yemen.
27 September 2017: House introduces resolution
Ro Khanna, a junior Democratic congressman from California, first introduced the resolution in the House of Representatives after a summer of mounting civilian casualties from Saudi air strikes in Yemen.
"The average person in my district, or Ohio or Pennsylvania, does not want us risking American troops or spending American tax dollars on fighting the Houthis in Yemen, and they certainly don't want us complicit in human rights violations," Khanna told MEE in an interview at the time.
Still, with only three Republican sponsors in a House of Representatives in which Republicans held a 59-seat majority, the resolution's prospects of success were bleak.
Aftermath of an air strike in Sanaa, January 2017 (Reuters)
Days before Khanna's bill was introduced, American humanitarian assistance programme USAID reported that a cholera outbreak in Yemen was nearing 700,000 cases.
That same month, Human Rights Watch accused Saudi Arabia of war crimes related to the killing of 39 civilians, including 26 children, over the previous two months.
14 November 2017: Symbolic declaration passes
Amid pushback from the leadership of both US parties, Khanna's bill was watered down and stripped of its impact.
But in a largely symbolic, 366-to-30 vote, the House denounced civilian casualties and asserted that Congress did not declare war in Yemen.
The vote nonetheless had no effect on US policy towards the conflict, or on Washington's military assistance to Saudi Arabia.
Aftermath of air strike by the Saudi-led coalition in Sanaa, 22 January, 2017 (AFP)
"Enough is enough. The US must stop providing military support to Saudi Arabia," Khanna wrote on Twitter at the time.
Less than a week before the vote, the UN warned of famine in Yemen if the Saudi-led coalition did not allow humanitarian aid into the country.
"It will be the largest famine the world has seen for many decades with millions of victims," Mark Lowcock, a UN official, said on 8 November.
28 February 2018: Sanders advances Senate bill
As Khanna's bill stalled in the House, US Senator Bernie Sanders teamed up with his colleagues Mike Lee, a Republican, and Chris Murphy, a Democrat, to bring a similar measure forward in the Senate.
REVEALED: The full extent of US arms deals with Saudi Arabia and UAE
"This horror is caused in part by our decision to facilitate a bombing campaign that is murdering children, and to endorse a Saudi strategy inside Yemen that is deliberately using disease and starvation and the withdrawal of humanitarian support as a tactic," Murphy said at the time.
Around that same time, clashes broke out in Yemen's southern city of Aden between various forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition.
The violence killed 39 people, highlighting the complexity of the conflict and Riyadh's inability to bring stability to the country, even in areas controlled by its allies.
26 September 2018: Khanna reintroduces his bill
Almost a year after he first presented his resolution to end US support to the coalition, Khanna reintroduced the measure.
This time, only months from the 2018 midterm elections, the legislation won the support of top Democratic lawmakers and garnered more than 50 co-sponsors.
A month before the motion was reintroduced, the Saudi-led coalition targeted a school bus in northern Yemen with a US-made bomb, killing 40 children.
Yemenis dig graves for children killed when their bus was bombed by Saudi-led coalition, 10 August 2018 (AFP)
The incident triggered outrage across the US political spectrum.
"One year later, the bloodshed continues with widespread destruction and disease contributing to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. US-fuelled planes continue to drop US-made bombs on innocent victims," Khanna said.
2 October 2018: Saudis kill Jamal Khashoggi
A group of Saudi government agents murdered Khashoggi at the country's consulate in Istanbul.
Khashoggi killing fuels renewed push to end US support for Saudi war in Yemen
The Washington Post columnist resided in the US at the time of his killing, and he had close ties to American politicians and other influential people in the country.
The gruesome nature of the murder, coupled with Khashoggi's high profile in Washington, spurred a wave of anger against Saudi Arabia and its powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
In the last column published before he was killed, Khashoggi called for ending the "cruel" Yemen war.
His death would bring greater scrutiny to US-Saudi relations and build a wider coalition of support for efforts in Congress to end US involvement in Yemen.
14 November 2018: House Republicans block resolution
Republicans lost control of the House in the midterm elections.
But before power shifted to the Democrats, who took control of the chamber in early 2019, Republicans blocked Khanna's resolution by attaching to it a rule that would deprive it of speedy passage.
Children in Sanaa protest against deadly Saudi air strikes on Yemeni civilians, 12 August, 2019 (AFP)
"We should be voting on this," Congressman Jim McGovern, a Democrat, said at the time. "People are dying every minute in Yemen. Our silence and our inaction mean that we are complicit."
That November was one of the deadliest months of the war, with more than 3,000
fatalities, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED).
A week after the House resolution was blocked, Save the Children reported that up to 85,000 children under five may have died as a result of starvation or disease in Yemen since the beginning of the Saudi-led bombing campaign in April 2015.
"For every child killed by bombs and bullets, dozens are starving to death and it's entirely preventable," Tamer Kirolos, Save the Children's country director in Yemen, told AFP news agency at the time.
"Children who die in this way suffer immensely as their vital organ functions slow down and eventually stop."
13 December 2018: Senate passes historic resolution
For the first time in US history, the Senate invoked the War Powers Act by passing the Sanders-sponsored bill to halt US assistance to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.
The 56-41 vote in the Republican-controlled chamber was seen as a rebuke of Trump, who had continued to defend Riyadh and bin Salman after Khashoggi's death.
"We have brought Republicans and Democrats together in a very historical moment," Sanders said at the time.
Earlier that same month, peace talks between representatives of the Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition were held in Sweden. The negotiations came on the heels of heightened fighting in the port city of Hodeidah, which had become a lifeline for millions of Yemenis in critical need of humanitarian supplies.
The new make-up of Congress came into effect, with Democrats taking control of the House and Republicans retaining a majority in the Senate.
US Capitol Building in Washington (MEE)
That meant that all the pending bills related to Yemen had to be brought up for a vote again.
That same month, MEE reported that the crippling conflict had forced many Yemeni children to drop out of school and look for work in order to support their families.
"I want to study regularly, but it is difficult because I need to sell my items before noon," said 12-year-old Mohammed Ghlaib, who had been forced to sell sweets on the streets of Taiz to help his family afford basic necessities.
"If I study regularly, my family will not get enough money to buy food."
13 February 2019: House passes resolution
In one of their first legislative accomplishments, House Democrats passed Khanna's resolution by a comfortable margin, 248 to 177.
However, lawmakers attached unrelated passages to the bill - condemning anti-Semitism and efforts to boycott Israel - which meant it could not be granted a swift vote in the Senate.
Instead, it would first have to go through several committees before it could be voted upon.
That same month, USAID reported that nearly 80 percent of Yemen's population required humanitarian assistance.
13 March 2019: Senate passes new resolution
In order to get around the procedural delays created by the House - after it attached unrelated amendments to the anti-war bill - the Senate introduced and passed a new resolution on Yemen.
After a 54-46 vote, the resolution, which was similar to what the Senate approved in December 2018, was then sent back to the House to pass.
Cholera patients at Taiz City's Republican Hospital (MEE)
That month, an MEE correspondent in Sanaa reported that more than 100 women and girls had been abducted in and around the Yemeni capital, as part of a worrying trend of kidnappings and growing insecurity.
Unknown abductors snatched Mohammed al-Asri's 12-year-old daughter, Ghadir, while she was lagging behind her friends on her way to school, the father told MEE at the time. "We only found her bag and jacket on the route between the school and the house," he said.
"We are still looking for her and we informed the police station, and we hope to find her. I feel lost after my daughter's abduction."
4 April 2019: House approves legislation
Finally, more than 18 months after the resolution was first introduced, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives comfortably passed the Senate bill.
That sent the legislation to the president's desk. But Trump had already promised to veto the attempt to end US aid to Saudi-led forces in Yemen, and observers in Washington were prepared for a showdown.
Still, by the time Congress passed the bill, Yemen was utterly devastated.
Less than two weeks before the resolution was passed, a Saudi-led air strike hit a hospital, killing at least four children and three adults.
16 April 2019: Trump vetoes legislation
As promised, Trump blocked the bill, calling it an "unnecessary, dangerous attempt" to weaken his authority.
The veto left Congress with a difficult task to turn the legislation into law - they would need a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate to override the president's veto.
"He failed to uphold the principles of the Constitution that give Congress power over matters of war and peace," Khanna said.
Two days after Trump's veto, Oxfam warned that Yemen's deadly cholera outbreak was expected to worsen this year.
The charity said it may even surpass the total cases recorded in 2017, when the World Health Organisation described the crisis as the worst in human history.
2 May 2019: Senate upholds Trump's veto
Finally, the Senate fell 14 votes shy of the 67 it needed to overturn Trump's veto.
Yemen death toll to surpass 230,000 by end of 2019: UN report
Despite pleas from the bill's supporters, 45 Republicans delivered a victory for Trump.
And with that, the years-long effort to end Washington's role in the war in Yemen was over.
"So long as the United States participates in the military campaign with the Saudis while not offering any meaningful pressure to get to a political settlement, we are complicit in those deaths," Senator Murphy said before the vote.
The failure came only weeks after a UN report warned that the death toll from the conflict in Yemen would surpass 230,000 by the end of the year.
"It's worse than people expected," Jonathan Moyer, the report's lead author, told MEE.
"It's one of the highest-impact internal conflicts since the end of the Cold War. On par with Iraq, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo - conflicts with an impact on development that lasts for a generation."
After failing to override the presidential veto, Democrats in Congress are now looking for new ways to tie the Trump administration’s hands by defunding the Yemen war.
The latest World Press Freedom Index indicates the United States and other large democracies are reaching a tipping point.
BYJOHANN BIR,C.K. HICKEY- EXPLORE THE MAP: Use the layer selector in the top-left corner of this interactive map to explore the changes in the World Press Freedom Index over time. The top layer shows the index data for 2019, with labels for the five best and five worst countries. Uncheck that box to view how countries scored on the index in 2013. Uncheck both of those layers to view each country’s change in score over six years. The more orange a country’s color, the more its index score has increased since 2013. Countries in blue lowered their index scores over time.
The situation for press freedom is bleak. Reporters Without Borders has published the World Press Freedom Index since 2002. This map, showing trends since 2013, paints a grim picture. Put simply, the darker the color, the worse the situation, and there is a steady darkening across the globe.
The global indicator calculated by Reporters Without Borders has worsened by 13 percent since 2013, and the overall global score has gone from 3,395 points in 2013 to 3,845 in 2019. It has never been so high since we started compiling the index. The number of countries colored white on the World Press Freedom Map (i.e., where the situation is “good”) has decreased by 40 percent in five years. According to Reporters Without Borders’ measurement, just 9 percent of the world’s population now lives in countries where journalists can operate freely and independently.
This worrying trend affects all continents: All regional scores have worsened in this period, except for the Asia-Pacific.
Although it remains the region where press freedom is respected most, the European Union and the Balkans registered the biggest deterioration. Journalists have been murdered in the EU every year since 2017: Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta in 2017, Jan Kuciak in Slovakia in 2018, and Lyra McKee in Northern Ireland just weeks ago.
The rise of authoritarian strongmen, from Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines to Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil to Donald Trump in the United States; the debasement of debate; and the normalization of hostile speech against media institutions have fostered a climate of fear and nurtured violent actions against journalists, even in places where press freedom has historically been strong.
Some of the world’s largest democracies are now reaching a tipping point for press freedom. Trump’s America and Bolsanaro’s Brazil are now officially classified as “problematic” on the World Press Freedom Index, with their leaders making frequent verbal attacks on journalists and adding to a climate of fear. India is classified as “bad,” thanks to the politically motivated mobs that torment and threaten reporters on social media.
Meanwhile, the promise of borderless global communication has been perverted by the practice of repression without boundaries—most brutally expressed in the gruesome murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.
Over the past few years, internet shutdowns have become commonplace, and authoritarian regimes increasingly use sophisticated surveillance technologies (often supplied by companies based in democratic countries) to track down their critics. Ever stricter controls on internet usage have also affected citizens’ ability to consume and share information.
War, of course, has also taken a devastating toll on journalists, who are increasingly targeted, especially by nonstate actors. The ongoing wars in Syria and Yemen, plus outbreaks of conflict in countries across the globe, meant that 2018 was one of the deadliest years on record for reporters, with 80 journalists killed worldwide. The number of media workers killed in 2019 already stands at 12.
There are, of course, outliers. Tunisia, the only country to pursue a transition to democracy after the Arab Spring uprisings, has jumped 66 places in the index since 2013, from 138 to 72. Ethiopia, which long languished at the bottom of the table, has seen notable improvements under the government of Abiy Ahmed. For the first time since 2008, there are no Ethiopian journalists in jail. Uzbekistan also released all journalists jailed under the late dictator Islam Karimov, including the world’s longest-held journalist, Muhammad Bekjanov. As a result of this and other encouraging moves, the country is no longer classified as “bad” on the World Press Freedom Index.
Johann Bir is the head of the Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk at Reporters Without Borders.
C.K. Hickey is the interactives and features designer at Foreign Policy.
Indonesia plans to relocate its capital from the sprawling city of Jakarta – and it isn’t the only country with plans to build whole new cities. Source: AsiaTravel/Shutterstock
In the face of increasingly unsustainable urban environments, do we retrofit existing cities, or relocate and build new cities to achieve greater sustainability?
The goal of turning cities from sustainability problems to solutions is driving a suite of “future city” innovations. These include the planning and development of whole new cities.
The urban ambition includes creating carless and walkable cities, green cities able to produce oxygen through eco-skyscrapers, high-speed internet embedded in the urban fabric, the capacity to convert waste into energy, and reclaiming land to create new strategic trade opportunities.
However, striking the right balance between innovative ideas and democratic expectations, including the public right to the city, remains a challenge.
The Minnesota Experimental City offers a cautionary tale. The aim was to solve urban problems by creating a new city. It would use the latest technology including nuclear energy, automated cars and a domed roof enclosure.
Despite significant government and financial backing, including its own state agency, the Minnesota project failed due to a lack of public understanding and local support for a top-down futuristic project.
In 1960, Brazil moved its capital from Rio de Janeiro to the futuristic city of Brasilia. While the city was designed to accommodate both rich and poor, it quickly became unaffordable for the average family. Half a century on, it was reported:
“The poor have been shunted out to satellite cities, which range from proper well-built cities to something more like a shanty town.”
A key reason for moving the capital is that Jakarta is prone to serious flooding and is rapidly sinking. Jakarta also suffers overpopulation, severe traffic gridlock, slums and a lack of critical urban infrastructure such as drainage and sanitation.
The Indonesian capital Jakarta is part of a larger mega-city. Source: Rainer Lesniewski/Shutterstock
This vast connected urban meta-region is known as Jabodetabek, from the initials of the cities within it: Jakarta (with a population of 10 million), Bogor (1 million), Depok (2.1 million), Tangerang (2 million), South Tangerang (1.5 million) and Bekasi (2.7 million).
Relocating the capital away from the crowded main island of Java offers the opportunity to better plan the political and administrative centre using the latest urban design features and technology.
Two key questions arise. If environmental degradation and overpopulation are the key issues, what will become of the largely remaining population of Greater Jakarta? At a national scale, how will this relocation help overcome the socio-economic and spatial disparities that exist in Indonesia?
Egypt, for example, is building a new capital city to overcome severe urban congestion and overcrowding in Greater Cairo. But there is no guarantee the new capital will resolve these issues if the emphasis is solely on technological innovation, without adequate attention to urban equity and fairness.
Despite all the advances that have occurred in technology, the arts, architecture, design and the sciences, there is surprisingly little innovation or public discussion about what might be possible for 21st-century Australian settlements beyond the capital cities.
Future Australian city planning and development focuses largely on enlarging and intensifying the footprints of existing major cities. The current urban policy trajectory is in-fill development and expansion of the existing state capital mega-city regions, where two-thirds of the population live. But what is lost through this approach?
In the late 1980s the MFP was envisaged as a high-tech city of the future with nuclear power, modern communication and Asian investment. It failed to gain the necessary political, investment and public support and was never built.
The current CLARA Plan proposes building up to eight new regional smart cities connected by a high-speed rail system linking Sydney and Melbourne via Canberra. Each of these cities is designed to be compact, environmentally sustainable and just a quick train trip away from the capital cities.
CLARA has outlined a “value capture” business model based on private city land development, not “government coffer” funding. How these new cities propose to function within the constitutional framework of Australia is as yet unclear and untested.
Are we thinking too narrowly when we talk about future Australian cities?
The “future city” prompts us to rethink and re-imagine the complex nature and make-up of our urban settlements, and the role of critical infrastructure and planning within them.
The future of Australian cities will require creativity, vision (even courage) to respond effectively to the challenges and opportunities of sustainable development.
This will not be the remit of any one political party, but a bipartisan national urban settlement agenda that affects and involves all Australians.
Wendy Steele, Associate Professor, Centre of Urban Research and Urban Futures Enabling Capability Platform, RMIT University
Terrorists are aware that their success in executing sporadic attacks of retribution and fear depend on the ineptitude of governments and society in the manner they react to an existing threat
by Dr Ruwantissa Abeyratne-2019-05-03
Writing from Montreal
Scratch any ideology and beneath it you will find a terrorist ~ Edmund Burke
The above quote may not necessarily apply in reverse – that if one scratches a terrorist, one would find an ideology. But on the other hand, one might. Walter Lacqueur and Christopher Wall in their book The Future of Tourism quote Professor David Rapoport – former academic at the University of California, Los Angeles - as saying that terrorism is not a new phenomenon and that it has occurred historically in four waves: firstly in Europe targeting the Kings and the elite of the time; a nationalist wave following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles( signed on 28 June 1919 after World War 1) pushing for decolonization; a terrorist wave supporting the Vietcong against the American war effort in Vietnam in the Sixties; and the current wave carried out by radical Islamists. Lacqueur and Wall go back into history to 66AD-73Ad when the Sicarii – a group pursuing the struggle for Palestine - launched surprise attacks randomly spaced out during holidays and during daytime, as possibly the start of the phenomenon.
A terrorist act is one which is mala in se or evil by nature and has been associated with the political repression of the French Revolution era where, it is said, the word terrorism was coined. A terrorist is a hostis humani generis or common enemy of humanity. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) defines terrorism as “the use of force or violence against persons or property in violation of the criminal laws of the United States for purposes of intimidation, coercion, or ransom”.
International terrorism has so far not been defined comprehensively largely due to the fact that owing to its diversity of nature the concept itself has defied precise definition. However, this does not preclude the conclusion that international terrorism involves two factors. They are: the commission of a terrorist act by a terrorist or terrorists; the “international” element involved in the act or acts in question, i.e., that the motivation for the commission of such act or acts or the eventual goal of the terrorist should inextricably be linked with a country other than that in which the act or acts are committed.
Looking at these definitions one could only surmise that they are generic and general in nature. In the context of the current wave of terrorism identified by Professor Rapoport - the series of acts carried out by radical Islamists – and the acknowledgement of ISIS that it is responsible for the recent attacks in Sri Lanka, one could refer to the ISIS journal Dabiq which reflects that their hatred is primarily aimed at disbelievers who reject the oneness of Allah and also blaspheme him by claiming Allah has a son; those who fabricate lies about prophets and messengers; those who indulge in unacceptable practices; those who, in their secular liberal societies permit the things Allah has prohibited; atheists who disbelieve in the existence of Allah; those who commit crimes against Islam; those who commit crimes against Muslims; and those who invade lands of Muslims. It is unquestionable that the overall philosophy here is international in nature.
Terrorists are aware that their success in executing sporadic attacks of retribution and fear depend on the ineptitude of governments and society in the manner they react to an existing threat. They are adept at evaluating the strength and weaknesses of governments and the absence of charismatic leadership.
Acts of international terrorism that have been committed over the past two decades are too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say, that the most deleterious effect of the offense is that it exacerbates international relations and endangers international security. From the isolated incidents of the sixties, international terrorism has progressed to becoming a concentrated assault on nations and organizations that are usually susceptible to political conflict, although politics is not always the motivation of the international terrorist. International terrorism has been recognized to engulf acts of aggression by one State on another as well as by an individual or a group of individuals of one State on another State. The former typifies such acts as invasion, while the latter relates to such individual acts of violence as hijacking and the murder of civilians in isolated instances. In both instances, the duties of the offender-State have been emphatically recognized. Such duties are to condemn such acts and take necessary action.
The responsibility of governments in acting against offences committed by private individuals may sometimes involve condonation or ineptitude in taking effective action against terrorist acts. The United Nations General Assembly, on 9 December 1999, adopted the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (ratified by Sri Lanka in September 2000), aimed at enhancing international co-operation among States in devising and adopting effective measures for the prevention of the financing of terrorism, as well as for its suppression through the prosecution and punishment of its perpetrators.
The Convention, in its Article 2 recognizes that any person who by any means directly or indirectly, unlawfully or, provides or collects funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out any act which constitutes an offence under certain named treaties, commits an offence. One of the treaties cited by the Convention is the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 15 December 1997 (Sri Lanka ratified this Convention on 23 March 1999).
The Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism also provides that, over and above the acts mentioned, providing or collecting funds toward any other act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in the situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act, would be deemed an offence under the Convention.
The most pragmatic approach to the problem lies in identifying the parameters of the offense of international terrorism and seeking a solution to the various categories of the offense. To obtain a precise definition would be unwise, if not impossible. Once the offense and its parasitic qualities are clearly identified, it would become necessary to discuss briefly its harmful effects on the international community. It is only then that a solution can be discussed that would obviate the fear and apprehension we suffer in the face of this threat.
The author is a former senior official of the United Nations system.
Residents stay on the second floor of their house amid floodwaters in Jakarta, Indonesia, on April 26 after several areas were affected by heavy rainfall. (Bay Ismoyo/AFP/Getty Images)
ByJohn Englander-May 3 at 8:19 AM
John Englander is president of the International Sea Level Institute and author of “High Tide on Main Street.”
Indonesia made a stunning announcement this week that it will relocate its capital from Jakarta. The decision validates decades of warnings about the city’s catastrophic flood risk due to sinking land and rising seas. While Jakarta is especially vulnerable to the threat of rising seas, it serves as a profound wake-up call for hundreds of major cities, Washington included.
In making his decision, Indonesian President Joko Widodo said that the move is necessary, given that the city can no longer support its massive population in the face of environmental threats, as well as concerns of traffic congestion and water shortages. Surely at the top of his concerns is the fact that the city is sinking, a phenomenon known as subsidence. In the past 30 years, Jakarta sank more than 10 feet — a problem made only worse as the world’s great ice sheets melt.
Jakarta is an extreme case, but it is by no means unique. In the United States, major cities such as New Orleans and Norfolk are also subsiding, though not nearly as fast. Even still, all coastal cities must face up to the reality of rising seas. There is no time to waste in planning and adapting to this threat.
Although Miami is often cited as the city most at risk, there are many highly vulnerable — and highly populous — cities around the world, including Mumbai and Calcutta, India; Shanghai; Lagos, Nigeria; Manila; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Bangkok; Copenhagen; Tokyo; London; Houston; and Tampa.
In fact, thousands of coastal cities and rural communities globally are not only at risk, but already experience increased flooding during extreme high tides, often referred to as “king tides.”
The swelling oceans demand that we start designing for and investing in the future now. The latest projections for average global sea-level rise this century range from about three feet to as much as eight. Keeping it to the lower part of that range largely depends on extreme global efforts to reduce greenhouse gases far beyond current efforts. But even a one-foot rise in sea level can dramatically increase coastal flooding. Hundreds of millions of people and trillions of dollars of assets are at risk.
Indonesia’s decision to be proactive is something all coastal cities should do, what I call “intelligent adaptation.” Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on futile efforts to protect Jakarta from the dozen rivers that run through it — extending fragile walls never engineered to cope with the present threat — it will now start investing in a new capital city that has a sustainable future.
Meanwhile in the United States, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently announced that the combination of rising seas and subsidence will render the $14 billion fix to New Orleans’s levees inadequate in just four years. Clearly, we need a new strategy, too.
Aggressively reducing carbon emissions could avert the worst scenarios, but sea-level rise probably cannot be stopped this century. The planet has already warmed almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit, which means ice sheets and glaciers will continue to melt for centuries.
Engineering for greater “resiliency” — the new buzzword — is a great idea to prepare for short-duration flood events such as from hurricanes. But preparing for rising sea level is different and requires adapting to a new normal.
Though it is tempting to procrastinate, cities would be smart to begin their adaptation planning now. By planning for rising sea levels, cities create confidence in their future. Adaptation can be a tremendous economic opportunity.
Coastal communities should be crafting 30-year master plans to positively address the threat, which could take many forms. For example, Washington is on the Potomac, a tidal river, and already experiences occasional flooding during extreme high tides and stormy weather. Rising seas will make that worse, but the city can probably protect itself with various forms of flood barriers on the river. Most vulnerable cities are not so fortunate and will need to look at a full range of options.
In Jakarta, the solution was to move the capital. Even that dramatic decision will not quickly solve the challenges for the 10 million residents. Yet it recognizes a new reality, allowing them to truly invest in the future. It’s time for all coastal communities to plan for the future.
Scientists analyse whether gravitational wave detectors picked up signs of collision An artist’s illustration of two colliding neutron stars. Photograph: Dana Berry/Swift/NASA
If confirmed, the detection by the twin Ligo detectors in the US and the Virgo detector in Italy would be the first evidence that black holes and neutron stars can pair up in binary systems. The observations could also reveal new details about the nature of such dramatic mergers, including whether the neutron star was ripped apart before crossing the black hole’s threshold or whether it slid seamlessly into oblivion.
Patrick Brady, spokesman for the Ligo collaboration and professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said the signal from the possible collision, which took place on 26 April, needed further analysis before the team could be confident it was a real event rather than a random blip in the background noise. “It’s like listening to somebody whisper a word in a busy cafe, it can be difficult to make out the word or even to be sure that the person whispered at all,” he said. “It will take some time to reach a conclusion about this candidate.”
He put the chances of the observations being a glitch in the data at 14%.
Ligo and Virgo pick up the tiny ripples in the fabric of space and time that are sent out across the cosmos when two massive objects collide.
The possible detection came just a day after the Ligo and Virgo detectors identified a cataclysmic merger of two neutron stars for only the second time. Since the beginning of their third observational campaign on 1 April, the detectors have also spotted three black hole mergers.
Neutron stars are the smallest, densest stars known to exist. They are about 12 miles wide, and a teaspoon of neutron star material has a mass of about a billion tonnes. They have a smooth crust of pure neutrons, 10bn times stronger than steel. They are the collapsed remnants of giant stars, after a supernova explosion – even more massive stars go on to form black holes.
When two neutron stars collide, they not only send out gravitational waves but also light, meaning that if astronomers are able to swivel their optical telescopes to the right bit of sky in time they can also pick up the explosive aftermath in light waves.
The location of the possible neutron star and black hole merger, which is estimated to have taken place 1.2bn light years away, has been narrowed down to about 3% of the total sky – but that is still a vast region.
“All the astronomers are now chasing an unfortunately enormous patch of the sky to see whether there’s some light that has switched on at that time,” said Prof Alberto Vecchio, director of the Institute of Gravitational Wave Astronomy, University of Birmingham.
Detecting a flash of radiation could reveal crucial details about the size of the objects and the nature of the merger. Counterintuitively, the biggest black holes are the least dense and the gravitational pull at the edge of these objects is least fierce, so a neutron star colliding with a very large black hole might simply vanish from view. “The neutron star would just dive in and nothing happens, that’s it,” said Vecchio.
If confirmed, the detection would be the first evidence that black holes and neutron stars can pair up in binary systems. Photograph: AP
By contrast, for a smaller black hole, the gravity close to the event horizon would be so fierce that it could shred the neutron star, gobbling it up in several chunks. “Then you’d have this extremely dense material travelling at a fraction of the speed of light,” said Vecchio, which he said could release spectacular blasts of radiation that could be spotted by telescopes on Earth.
Since Ligo began observing in 2015, its sensitivity has been increased significantly meaning it is now making several detections a month. This increases the chances of it spotting previously unseen exotic objects which have been theoretically predicted, such as boson stars or mini black holes.
“We’re opening a new window on the universe and this will hopefully bring us a whole new perspective on what’s out there,” said Brady.
Further evidence that taking anti-HIV drugs stops gay men passing on the virus to sexual partners has been called a "powerful message" which should be more widely known.
This was due to treatment reducing the virus to very low levels in the body.
"Undetectable equals untransmittable" should be basic HIV knowledge for everyone, experts said.
The European study followed 972 gay male couples - where one was living with HIV and taking antiretroviral therapy (ART) and the other was HIV negative - over eight years, from 2010-2017.
There were no cases of HIV being passed within the couples over that time.
And the researchers say that around 472 cases of HIV are likely to have been prevented.
In total, the couples reported having anal sex without condoms a total of 76,088 times.
Although 15 men did become infected with HIV during the study, genetic testing showed that none of the viruses came from their main partner.
"Our findings provide conclusive evidence that the risk of HIV transmission through anal sex when HIV viral load is suppressed is effectively zero," the researchers said.
Treatment for HIV should start as soon as possible after diagnosis
Prof Alison Rodger, study author and professor of infectious diseases at University College London, said anal sex was known to have the highest risk of transmission, but gay men should be reassured.
"This powerful message can help end the HIV pandemic by preventing HIV transmission, and tackling the stigma and discrimination that many people with HIV face."
She called for all people living with HIV to have access to testing and effective treatment.
'Huge relief to know I can't pass on virus'
Matt Stokes, 26, was diagnosed with HIV in 2016 and started drug therapy four weeks later. Tests showed the virus was undetectable in his body within three months.
"It's a huge relief and gives me self confidence to know I can't pass on the virus," he says.
"Among the gay community and my friends there has been a real change in recent years - you can put 'undetectable' on Grindr, for example."
But there's a long way to go before everyone knows what it means, he adds.
"Some people don't want to believe it. They have an irrational fear it might not be true."
He says charities campaigning on the issue are giving the message "a huge boost" and changing views on sex.
Addressing stigma
Deborah Gold, chief executive of NAT (National AIDS Trust) said more should be done to get the message out to healthcare workers and the general public.
"There needs to be a much better understanding of how HIV is and isn't transmitted, and the fact that treatment stops transmission, in the NHS and beyond. We think this is vital to addressing stigma."
Previous research has shown zero risk for heterosexual couples of passing on the virus, when one person is taking HIV treatment, prompting UNAIDS to launch its undetectable = untransmittable campaign.
Dr Ford Hickson, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the study confirmed that if people suppress their HIV with antiretroviral therapy, they "cannot pass their virus to other people during sex, whatever kind of sex they have".
Anti-HIV drugs, or antiretroviral therapy, suppresses the virus to undetectable levels
In the study, the men with HIV had been taking antiretroviral therapy for an average of four years before it began, making the virus undetectable - defined as fewer than 200 copies per ml of blood.
Most people reach this level after taking daily HIV treatment for six months.
What is antiretroviral therapy?
It is a combination of drugs, to be taken daily, to stop HIV replicating in the body.
It can't cure HIV, but it can reduce the amount of virus to undetectable levels in the blood.
Most people with HIV take a combination pill once a day but others can take up to four pills a day depending on their specific health needs.
Everyone is recommended to start treatment straight away after being diagnosed.
Dr Michael Brady, medical director at Terrence Higgins Trust, said: "The study has given us the confidence to say, without doubt, that people living with HIV who are on effective treatment cannot pass the virus on to their sexual partners.
"This has incredible impact on the lives of people living with HIV and is a powerful message to address HIV-related stigma."
In the UK, 98% of people diagnosed with HIV are receiving treatment - and 97% of those have an undetectable level of the virus - meaning they are unable to pass on the infection.
But figures from Public Health England estimate than only 92% of the 101,600 of people living with HIV have been diagnosed.
Government soldiers in central Yemeni city of Taiz last October (Reuters/File photo)
An artist’s illustration of two colliding neutron stars. Photograph: Dana Berry/Swift/NASA
